Email here for additions & corrections.

Ishtar
(May, 1987)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (OOP)
(Ross, 1976)
The Devils
(Russell, 1974)
The Pirates of Penzance
(Papp/Leach, 1983)
The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Brewster McCloud
(Altman, 1972)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)

Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
(Seiter, 1936)
Sh! The Octopus
(McGann, 1937)
The Mating Season
(Leisen, 1951)
Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956)
House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Saint Joan
(Preminger, 1957)
Macabre
(Castle, 1958)
The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959)
1960's
Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960)
Summer and Smoke
(Glenville, 1961)
The Chapman Report
(Cukor,1962)
Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
The Chalk Garden
(Neame, 1964)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
The Whisperers
(Forbes, 1967)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
The Landlord
(Ashby, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
(Newman, 1971)
Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
(Hopper, 1971)
Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs (OOP)
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
(Edwards, 1972)
Pete 'n' Tillie
(Ritt, 1972)
Slither
(Zieff, 1973)
Man on a Swing
(Perry, 1974)
Open Season
(Collinson, 1974)
The Tamarind Seed
(Edwards, 1974)
Law and Disorder
(Passer, 1974)
Homebodies
(Yust, 1974)
Stardust
(Apted, 1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974)
1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
(Richards, 1975
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1975)
Hearts of the West
(Zieff, 1975)
Welcome to L.A.
(Rudolph, 1976)
W.C. Fields and Me
(Hiller, 1976)
Citizens Band
(Demme, 1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming
(Aldrich, 1977)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(Brooks, 1977)
Girlfriends
(Weill, 1978)
Movie Movie
(Donen, 1978)
The Medusa Touch
(Gold, 1978)
American Hot Wax
(Mutrux, 1978)
Hot Stuff
(DeLuise, 1979)
Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
(Harvey, 1979)
Rich Kids
(Young, 1979)
Nightwing
(Hiller, 1979)
Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
Resurrection
(Petrie, 1980)
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Fast-Walking
(Harris, 1982)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

March 5

Alice in Wonderland

Brooklyn's Finest

The Secret of Kells

March 12

The Exploding Girl

She's Out of My League

Stolen

SuicideGirls Must Die!

Tapes from the Script

March 17

Mid-August Lunch

Fat Cut for Avi

email this story
read comments (18)
post a comment

An insider on the new Bad Lieutenant team, responding to the Abel Ferrara item posted earlier this morning, explains it all: "The whole reason the film was made was because [executive producer] Avi Lerner got hold of the rights, which he bought from Ed Pressman for an undisclosed sum. And he went out and pre-sold the film in ten countries for $30 million, or an average of $3 million per country.

"Lerner funded the film for $20 million, and pocketed $10 million for himself. Nic Cage, who likes New Orleans and owns a home there, took a substantial pay cut -- only about $2 million -- because he wanted to work with [director] Werner Herzog, who probably got his first decent payday check out of this deal. William Finklestein's script wasn't good but Herzog upgraded it considerably. Lerner didn't even look at the script."

London, We Have a Problem<< previous | next >>Invisible Subtitle Game

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on October 15, 2008 at 10:41 AM

comment #1

actionman says ...

Pre-sell, pre-sell, pre-sell!

Lerner is a MAJOR hack but the idea that he drafted Herzog to do a dark cop movie makes me giddy. Herzog has never made anything less than a masterpiece. So, to say that I have high expectations for his latest would be an understatement. And if memory serves me correct, Herzog said that he'd be using some of his fee for Bad Lieutenant to help get The Piano Tuner made. Now THAT'S the movie I want to see most from Herzog.

Posted by actionman at October 15, 2008 12:36 PM

comment #2

PrinceGnarles says ...

The real question is what is Nic Cage's wig budget on this film? Was there a cut in his wig budget commensurate with the cut in his fee?

Posted by PrinceGnarles at October 15, 2008 12:47 PM

comment #3

PrinceGnarles says ...

The real question is what is Nic Cage's wig budget on this film? Was there a cut in his wig budget commensurate with the cut in his fee?

Posted by PrinceGnarles at October 15, 2008 12:47 PM

comment #4

actionman says ...

I just took a peek at the IMDB listing for the new Bad Lieutenant and I was very pleased to see that Herzog is working with d.p. Peter Zeitlinger again.

Also, Xzibit is in this film? Herzog directed Xzibit!? The behind the scenes docs on the DVD should be pretty funny to see! What an eclectic cast overall...Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes, Brad Dourif...

Posted by actionman at October 15, 2008 12:48 PM

comment #5

Chapman Carruthers says ...

Brad Dourif is exceptional in Humboldt County.

Posted by Chapman Carruthers at October 15, 2008 12:53 PM

comment #6

alynch says ...

I see no reason to get excited about an unoriginal film, especially when it's being made pretty clear that it's a straight up paycheck job for Herzog. He is not a man meant to be a gun for hire.

Posted by alynch at October 15, 2008 12:53 PM

comment #7

actionman says ...

Considering Herzog has never done a paycheck job like this in his entire career, I am hoping that he felt a real reason to make this film. They've also made it clear that this is not a remake or a reimagining or anything like that. It's similar in title only to Ferrara's film. It will be a dark cop film taking place in New Orleans, not NYC, and the particulars will be different. I have faith that Herzog can made a solid genre entry. I am excited to see what he brings to this sort of film.

Posted by actionman at October 15, 2008 1:04 PM

comment #8

p.Vice says ...

History has proven time and again that you can take any great name in the book and if you hand them shit, you'll get shit in return. This movie is clearly a money job all the way, and only a fool would think Herzog didn't take this for the paycheck. His name on it means zilch.

Interestingly, with this info plus Ferrara's Q&A comments you can pretty much understand that he's pissed b/c he didn't get paid, not because they're fucking with his idea.

Posted by p.Vice at October 15, 2008 1:05 PM

comment #9

actionman says ...

"His name on it means zilch."

Spoken by someone who has probably never seen a Werner Herzog film. If you had, you wouldn't even consider that idea.

Herzog can make anything he wants. He doesn't make movies for anyone but himself. Something must have attracted him to this project, other than the money. Seriously. If this was Jon Avnet it'd be one thing. But Herzog is as personal as it gets.

And have you read the script? How do you know it's shit?

Posted by actionman at October 15, 2008 1:10 PM

comment #10

JD says ...

This is a good situation for everyone. They have all the money up front, which means Herzog can do whatever the hell he wants. If it was a true paycheque gig, he'd have to take notes from studio execs and put in a ridiculous ending like the one Rescue Dawn had. Instead, he has carte blanche to do whatever he wants. And to be fair, Bad Lieutenant was never a genre film. Sure, the protagonist's a cop, but there's not much in the way of traditional plot. It's a sensationalistic art film, exactly the kind of thing Herzog excels at.

Posted by JD at October 15, 2008 1:38 PM

comment #11

actionman says ...

What was ridiculous about the ending of Rescue Dawn? Dieter being hoisted up by his fellow soldiers? He earned that moment.

Posted by actionman at October 15, 2008 1:44 PM

comment #12

corey3rd says ...

That was how it ended - watch Little Dieter Must Fly. Sometimes reality plays like a movie.

Posted by corey3rd at October 15, 2008 2:02 PM

comment #13

alynch says ...

They've also made it clear that this is not a remake or a reimagining or anything like that.

Every filmmaker ever put in charge of a remake or reimagining over the last decade has insisted that they're not doing a remake or reimagining. It's semantic bullshit. Simply by retaining the title, no matter how much they change the plot, they are leaching off of someone else's work, and Herzog should fucking know better.

Posted by alynch at October 15, 2008 2:39 PM

comment #14

actionman says ...

I don't think he cares. He didn't buy the rights -- Lerner did. He's the one that owns it. From what I expect of Herzog, he saw the chance to do something different with this sort of film and he took it. Do you really think Herzog cares about the title? Please. He couldn't give two shits.

Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe Herzog really needed to pay some bills and he thought, hey, I'll just grab the money and run. But I highly doubt that. It would be out of character for him.

Posted by actionman at October 15, 2008 2:45 PM

comment #15

JD says ...

actionman/coreyman3rd, my problem isn't with WHAT happened, but HOW it was executed. Tonally, Little Dieter does not end on the same note as Resceu Dawn, even if the narrative events recounted are the same. Herzog actually allowed that film to have narrative and thematic complexity, whereas Rescue Dawn -- a fantastic film right up until the final minutes -- trivializes his journey and leaves him seemingly un-changed. There's no sense of the film's events having any impact on him... he's just happy to be alive. This is fine by itself, but in relation to the film that preceded it, it's had absolutely no resonance.

Posted by JD at October 15, 2008 2:57 PM

comment #16